In October 2004, I started a blog I called Shakespeare’s Sister, after one of my favorite Smiths’ songs, and adopted the same as my own handle. When I had no readers besides Mr. Shakes, it didn’t seem particularly weird to share my handle with the name of the blog, but as an entire community of contributors, guest writers, commenters, and lurkers grew, it didn’t make a bit of sense. And so, as a nod to the community, Shakespeare’s Sister became Shakesville.

Shakesville is a political and cultural blog that looks at the world through a progressive lens. We blog about domestic politics, foreign policy, high culture, pop culture, books, film, telly, food, the patriarchy, oppression, repression, religion, philosophy, parenting, not parenting, marriage, why women’s trousers have so many buttons, and anything else that we feel like discussing. With photos. Many of them doctored for maximum hilarity.

SoapBoxers are the contributors who post anywhere from frequently to manically, and Sporadicals are the contributors who post more, well, sporadically. In which category a contributor falls is fluid and determined by the contributor her- or himself, based on what s/he wants to get out of and put into blogging at Shakesville. It’s really just a way of helping us manage the expectations we have of ourselves.

The Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime is a daily feature which evolved from a Sunday afternoon spent with Mr. Shakes watching bullshit on YouTube. I’d call up some show from my American childhood, and he’d call up some show from his Scottish childhood, and we noted to one other how evoking pleasant memories of one’s childhood seems to so readily ease adult anxiety. There’s something about hearing a theme song you haven’t heard in years, or seeing the opening credits to a show you loved loved loved as a kid, that just pulls you back into a space very distant from the tension of adulthood—and, like an unexpected smile can penetrate gloom, fond nostalgia seems to have the unique capacity to ease worries. So I decided to start each morning with a blast from the past in pursuit of such wistful Zen. Not every one means something to everyone, but hopefully everyone will experience on some days a grin and a sigh of warm recollection.

Blogwhoring is dropping into a comments thread the link to a post of which you’re proud, or which has content relevant to the discussion. Blogwhoring is generally encouraged anywhere at Shakesville, although we have official Blogwhoring threads on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Most Tuesdays and Thursdays, I also do “Read-Ems,” which are just round-ups of good stuff I’ve read that day, and those are also good places to drop a link or two.

The Virtual Pub is a Friday night gathering for all Shakers and other passersby to have a virtual drink and a nice chat about this or that. Sometimes it’s low-key, sometimes it’s wild, but it’s always interesting.

Comments are open to anyone as long as they don’t traffic in racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise overtly objectionable commentary. Differences of opinion are welcome; no one has ever been nor will ever be banned on a difference of opinion alone. Threats, trolling, pointless belligerence, and hate speech will get you banned. If some of that sounds rather arbitrary, well, it is. Ultimately, whether you can comment at Shakesville is at my discretion—and plaintive, angry, or accusatory wailing about free speech will fall on deaf ears. This isn’t a public square. This is a safe space.

Actually, douching was a terribly anti-woman practice designed to make women feel ashamed about their natural body odor. Repeated douching can wash away the lining of the uterus, making it not just pointless but dangerous. So, when one needs a word to describe, say, our pointless and dangerous president, one would be hard-pressed to find a better word than douchebag.

QCoFM is an abbreviation for Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain, which I christened myself in response to emails I’d been getting about my coarse and decidedly unladylike language: “Fearing that we face a whole new level of bullshit about which we will, and should, be visibly angry, and preparing myself thusly, comments and emails composed specifically to tell me to stop using bad language or to start being less aggressive, less hostile, less antagonistic, less bitchy, less arrogant, less belligerent, less vitriolic, less nasty, less acerbic, or less of a poopyhead, are as welcome as any other, but I feel obligated to inform all potential authors of such missives that they are, however, a waste of time. If I get my facts wrong, let me know. If you don’t like my tone, tough. At this bus stop in the blogosphere, I’m Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain, and I’m mean for a reason. Once we get our country back on the right track, there will plenty of time for nursery rhymes.”

What the Poop, or WTP, is like WTF, except…more so. Or less so. WTPs are sort of like Potter Stewart and obscenity—you just know it when you see it. WTF, while exceptionally useful in conveying cynical anger, pales in comparison to the genius of WTP when one needs to express guileless bewilderment at so much weird and fucked-up shit in the world. Its genesis lies with Mama Shakes, who exclaimed “What the poop?!” one evening in response to a confounding clock. I told Mama Shakes that “What the poop?!” was going straight on the blog—and she was going to have to pose for a picture, to which she immediately consented, because she’s as batshit nutz as I am.

Now, I’m sort of breaking the Feminazi Cooter League’s code of secrecy to do this, but let me just explain how the process works, to clear up any confusion: The Radical Gay Eggs are kept in the ovaries until they are fertilized by the dulcet tones of Barney Frank (or a Frank-certified Fertilofag like Spudsy), at which time they are deposited in the womb where they incubate alongside the Radical Gay Agenda Pink Disco Ball, which spins to the beat of It’s Raining Men. In mere hours, the Radical Gay Eggs hatch into teensy lavender copies of Melissa Etheridge singles, which slowly disintegrate as they pass through the vaginal canal, emitting radiating vibrations of the Radical Gay Agenda.

In response to sarcastic “Because, ya know, being fat is just a bad habit you don’t have the will or courtesy to break” I stated that ALL THE FAT IN YOUR BODY COMES THROUGH YOUR MOUTH, and that EXCERSIZING CONSISTENTLY BURNS THE FAT TEASPOON BY TEASPOON.

Want to gain weight? Eat more than you burn. Want to lose weight? Burn more than you eat. This applies even if you have a medical condition.

So being fat is indeed directly related to your habits of eating and excersizing.

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